Premises and Environment
UAUIM is located in the very core of the city of Bucharest, along one of the main north-south boulevard. Across the street from the University of Bucharest, the oldest academic structure in Romania, and facing the National Theatre, the UAUIM building occupies a whole urban block of 8000sq m. The University Place in the nearby, a popular meeting point in the modern city life, recently became a token of the post-communist civil society, since it still shows the signs of the 1989 Revolution and of the anti-communist movements inscribed on UAUIM's walls.
The three wings of the present building illustrate distinct moments in the modern history of Romanian architecture, and in the evolution of the School, too: for the building, from the searches for a national style (the old 1914-1927 wing, designed by Grigore Cerchez one of the first professors) to Modernism. For the School, from the enthusiastic orientation towards the affirmation of a new Romanian culture to its fading into a nationalist conservatism, from the similarly enthusiastic embracing of the modernist credo to its failure in front of a reality richer in lights and shades.
Although much criticism could be done in what concerns the architecture of the building, it entered the memory of the people of Bucharest, and the urban spaces it limits are very popular and often house cultural happenings, book fairs, street exhibitions and concerts, etc.
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